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Tim Page died on Wednesday. The celebrated war photographer and icon of the 1960s counter-culture drew his last breath in his adopted home at Bellingen on the NSW North Coast. He was 78, one of the last connections to a buccaneering era in journalism, when freelance reporters and photographers would jump aboard motorcycles and helicopters and trawl over Vietnam to cover the conflict, often in such graphic and confronting detail their work was credited with turning the tide of public opinion.
Page worked alongside people like Sean Flynn, the son of Australian actor Errol Flynn and who disappeared in Cambodia in 1970, and Michael Herr, whose book Dispatches is one of the best accounts of the Indochina conflict. Renowned for putting himself dangerously close to the action, Page was wounded four times. In 1965, while at a US camp that came under attack, Page shot and killed one of the Viet Cong infiltrators. He was the inspiration for the unhinged photographer in Kurtz's redoubt, played by Dennis Hopper, in Apocalypse Now.
It was a remarkable time in the history of journalism. Reporters would rush into the field in the morning and be back in the evening to write up their stories and process film and print photos. And the perils weren't confined to the battlefield. Drugs were readily available and in the hothouse of 1960s Saigon, the go-to psychological salve for the mental torment of covering the war.
A couple of years ago, The Echidna got a rare glimpse into the world inhabited by Page and Flynn during an interview with Carl Robinson, who was a photo editor for Associated Press in Saigon. In his book The Bite of The Lotus, Robinson recounts his own long-term love affair with Vietnam, his press work as the war raged around him and the addiction to heroin that came with the territory (overcome after he was choppered out to a warship in the South China Sea as Saigon was falling in April 1975). Alongside Horst Faas at the Associated Press bureau in Saigon, Robinson wired the horrifying image of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, the naked girl burnt by napalm and running down the road photographed by Nick Ut. That photo was published around the world and remains an enduring image from the Vietnam War. In 1997 Page and Haas published Requiem, a portfolio of work by combat photographers who died covering the war in Indochina.
In his book, Robinson describes his first meeting with Page, after being invited to a gathering by John Steinbeck IV, journalist son of the famous author. Page "was sitting on a mat rolling one of his classic four-sheet super joints ... it was big enough for everyone in the room to have a toke". Robinson met up with Page at a reunion of journalists in Saigon in 1995. They were in regular contact after Page moved to Australia in 2002. Robinson now lives a quiet life near Wollongong, a volunteer at a local aircraft museum. He's a living link to the war which shaped a generation. If you can track down his book, I highly recommend it.
The passage of time, naturally, dulls our memory of the Vietnam War. Then the passing of one of its most famous witnesses brings it back into focus. If there's one thing the reporters and journalists who risked and lost their lives covering it taught us, it's that we must look war straight in the face.
As Page himself said, "Any war picture is an anti-war picture."
HAVE YOUR SAY: What's the best book about the Vietnam war you've read? And the best movie? Did the war affect you or your family in any way? What lessons should we learn from it? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- The ambassador of Ukraine has asked the federal government if it can have the plot of land previously allocated to Russia so Ukraine can build an embassy there. He made his broad appeal for space for a Ukrainian embassy known to the Department of Foreign Affairs on his arrival in March, but he said the situation had now moved on because of the decision by the National Capital Authority to take the plot in Yarralumla back from Russia.
- Qantas has posted a full-year underlying pre-tax loss of $1.86 billion after border closures and travel uncertainty as the COVID-19 pandemic weighed on earnings. The airline's net loss after tax for the year to June 30 narrowed to $860 million, compared with $1.7 billion the year before.
- A high-ranking Queensland judge has been picked to lead a royal commission into the "cruel" Robodebt system. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed former chief justice of the Queensland Supreme Court, Catherine Holmes, will head the inquiry, which will hand down its final report in April 2023.
THEY SAID IT: "I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service." - John Kerry
YOU SAID IT: We asked whether the price we're paying to support Ukraine is worth it and were we becoming desensitised to the war.
Arthur says we become desensitised at our own peril: "The outcome of the so-called special military operation in Ukraine will have repercussions for years to come. Putin will not stop if he gains control over Ukraine. We become desensitised to the war in Ukraine at our own peril. The price we are paying is trivial compared with what the Ukrainians are paying. It is also trivial compared to the suffering due to starvation in Africa largely but not solely caused by this senseless striving for empire-building by dictators. We are already desensitised to the wars in Syria, Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo and Burma. When is the world going to learn that there are no winners in war, only losers? I fear it will not be tomorrow. Thank you for a thought-provoking column. The variety of comments on the shortage of housing and skilled workers was to say the least very interesting, if not underlying the need for a combined think tank such as the upcoming summit." Thank you, Arthur, for being part of the conversation.
Bruce is happy to bear the cost of support: "Rather pay a little more instead of being amidst a war. Rock Legend Jimi Hendrix once stated: 'When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace!'"
S says the news is hard to cop: "Barely able to watch the news without boiling over with grief and rage against the perpetrators of this, the other wars, oppression, unaddressed general corruption and venality - Panama Papers anyone? There was a moment of global light after 9/11 - Bush blew it for all of us. Putin should have been slapped down much earlier, still looking at you, Londongrad."
Terry says, "I think it is inevitable that we would become a little desensitised to a conflict so far away. We must, however, bear some cost and discomfort in support of Ukraine and its long-suffering people. To think that so much suffering could be inflicted on an innocent people by a criminal tyrant like Putin is extremely disturbing. The small price we are paying fades into insignificance compared to the immense suffering of the people of Ukraine."
Rosemary cuts straight to the point: "Freedom is not cheap. But I can only imagine that giving into dictators you sell your soul."
Bob says the war has some way to run: "Like all of the major stoushes since World War II, unfortunately the Ukraine war won't be ending any time soon. Russia was in Afghanistan for 10 years before America's 20-year episode. France was in Vietnam before America's episode there too. And the Korean peninsular divide has never been fully resolved. China's expansionist military and economic policies will soon follow. You'd think that world leaders would have learned by now."
Peter asks: "I wonder why the American invasion of Iraq did not cause as much anger as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. White racism?" It's a fair question.